11.02.2010

Funny story...

I got a text message from @duckhead around 10:30 PM last night:

So I call him up. Turns out he was out running, and saw an arcade cabinet in someone's garbage. Not only an arcade cabinet, but it looks like it has six buttons. It couldn't be... Could it? A Street Fighter II machine? In the garbage? It was dark and he just had a chance to do a quick inspection but it looked complete. He wondered if he should maybe grab it and bring it home before someone else comes along. I was in my Jeep and at his house within ten minutes.

We hopped in his pickup truck and drove a mile or so down the road to the house in question. Sure enough, there's a full size arcade cabinet, with two six button joysticks. This is too good to be true! On closer inspection we got a good look at the marquee on top of the machine and saw this:

Yep. This was a "Street Fighter The Movie" cabinet. Yes, the horrible game based on the horrible 1994 feature film starring Jean Claude Van-Damme that's so horribly horrible that I act like I've never heard of it when people mention it to me.

Well, an arcade cabinet is an arcade cabinet, and this one was FREE, no matter how terrible the game inside. So without a second thought we used our years of arcade expertise to quickly disassemble the machine and lift its heaviness into the truck bed.

On returning to his garage, we were astonished to find that the only things missing were the actual game JAMMA (who cares right?) and the monitor. Everything else, lights, buttons, joysticks, coin mechs, power supply, and the cabinet itself are in fantastic shape. What a find!

He has plans to turn it into a Capcom Multi-CPS machine which will be pretty awesome when it's finished. Replace the old buttons and joysticks, replace a few rusty bolts and a good dust and polish, and that machine will look brand new. It won't be as cool as mine of course ;) but it'll be pretty damn sexy. I'll ask him for some before and after pictures for you to check out.